The present invention relates to a portable telephone having an infrared communication function and an automobile system using the portable telephone.
Conventionally, NTT DoCoMo has offered a service named as xe2x80x9cD modexe2x80x9d to prevent accidents during driving. When a portable telephone in the D mode receives an incoming call, the message xe2x80x9cI am driving now so . . . xe2x80x9d is passed to the caller, thereby preventing the call from being directly connected to the driver. This D mode is set by dialing xe2x80x9c14151xe2x80x9d, and is canceled by dialing xe2x80x9c14150xe2x80x9d. A portable telephone allowing the user to perform the above five-digit dialing operation with one button operation has already been available.
There is, however, no link between the automobile system and the portable telephone. The user must therefore separately take the action of driving the automobile and the action of setting the portable telephone in the D mode. For this reason, all drivers who carry portable telephones do not necessarily set the telephones in the D mode. Even a driver who has an intention of setting the D mode may forget to set the D mode. Obviously, if the portable telephone is not set in the D mode, the driver may be distracted by an unexpected call during driving to cause an accident.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a portable telephone which has the function of communicating with a system operated by a user and can set a link between the user""s action of operating the system and the user""s action of operating the portable telephone, and an automobile system using the portable telephone.
In order to achieve the above object, according to the present invention, there is provided a portable telephone comprising infrared communication means, and speech communication mode switching means for switching speech communication modes in accordance with a signal received from a distant system through the infrared communication means.